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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25193041">Vanishing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tagedieb/pseuds/Tagedieb'>Tagedieb</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age: Inquisition</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:55:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>509</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25193041</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tagedieb/pseuds/Tagedieb</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Falon'Din contemplates his twin soul's death. For whom is this a happy ending?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Vanishing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for a prompt.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The decay had set in a while ago. Not actual decay, of course, but rather a gradual lessening of his essence.</p><p>He hid his fading features behind thick layers of cloth. A large hood, a bulky scarf. Long, long robes. He wasn’t even certain they realised what had happened yet, but when he looked in the mirror... He had no mouth, but was inclined to scream.</p><p>Slowly but surely he would vanish completely. It wasn’t fair. His twin soul had never been a fighter. Interested only in knowledge, sometimes mischievously silent, but ever with the light of curiosity in his eyes.</p><p>His twin had gone to meet a friend and when he felt the pain through the bond he raced to help and found only bloody remains. Were he not so intricately interwoven with Death, he’d have followed his soul to eternal rest. Instead he remained, a faceless tether, fraying further and further until something would snap.</p><p>The thing staring back at him from the mirror was a husk, an unfinished statue that grew only more unfinished with time. As though the craftsman to make him had been erased from time and he was reverting back to his natural form.</p><p>What could never pass for skin was bone-like, in colour and consistence. His eyes, pools of blood, no mouth to speak with, no hair to be lovingly braided by skilled fingers. And yet the damage to his appearance, perfect as it may have once been, was nothing compared to the loss of his other soul.</p><p>To be alone. To call, eternally, in an endless void, with no voice, with no one to hear. That was the true cruelty. What an insidious enemy. A traitor from their own ranks the way his body betrayed him now. What his mother saw in that abomination he could not comprehend.</p><p>Oh he knew who had done this. If he hadn’t been weakened his brother’s killer would be dead twice over. Or perhaps, he thought as he raised his crumbling fingers to the face he’d begun to lose, not dead – no. But suffering.</p><p>That wolf could never understand the loss of his reflection. Always alone, any pretence of caring for the people smothered in his arrogance of believing he knew best what they needed. He hardly knew what he needed himself! Someone who could not understand loss the way others did could talk of war and sacrifice all he wanted, but there was no point in listening to him.</p><p>He didn’t know <em>loss</em>. He would <em>never</em> know loss, not even once his life drained out of him. He wouldn’t ever feel this pain – unless Falon’Din arranged it.</p><p>Solas <em>would</em> know loss. He would love and he would destroy it himself. That would be his revenge.</p><p>Falon’Din turned his gaze to the stars; he had been unusually occupied with the present. But no more. This plan required precision and waiting.</p><p>And when, centuries later, Solas held the lifeless body of his lover in his arms, the facsimile reflected in the mirror bore a terrible grin.</p>
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